Engine Dyno Testing - Cam Swap Test Results

Yeah.

Hey, welcome to horsepower. Where over the years we've used our chassis Dinos

like the new one here to measure horsepower at the rear wheels. But you know, that's just part of a power testing equation.

You need a state of the art engine

dyno

to build motors and maximize their power. So say hello to our brand new horsepower

dyno cell

inside. We've got AD TS power mark engine

dyno with a continuous capacity of 2000 horsepower, 1500 ft pounds of torque and 15,000 RPM.

Now we know some engine builders who have measured more than 2500 horsepower on this equipment. Today, we're going to take some of the

out of the engine Dinos and show you how you can free up a bunch of extra horsepower using this type of equipment. But first, here's an animation to give you a heads up on how it all works.

The twisting force an engine makes is called torque. And to measure it accurately, a dynamometer acts like a giant water break

the engine's crank shaft gets connected to the Dino's impeller housing

water inside the housing creates resistance, making it hard to turn the crank shaft.

This heats up the water and puts a serious load on the impeller housing as it literally tries to rotate off the Dinos frame.

A force transducer bolted between the housing and the frame measures the rotational strain

which the computer translates into torque and horsepower.

The hot water gets pumped back to the main storage tank for reuse.

While most of the Dino's water is used to absorb torque. Some of it regulates engine temperature.

All of this makes for an accurate, efficient and consistent

dyno test system.

Well, that gives you an idea of how it all works, but to make it work efficiently, there's a lot more to it like this room, it's sitting in, it needs to be a place that's a controlled environment, one that's safe and a place that can contain the noise. Oh, by the way, here's a little look at how all this was put together

industrial noise control, pre engineered a dyno

test room for our shop that was easy to erect.

After laying out the footprint,

they attached perimeter channels to the floor, followed by steel wall panels.

The four inch panels have thousands of preparations to channel sound into layers of noise, absorbing mineral wool, gypsum and fiberglass.

The room also includes dual pane safety windows, a magnetically sealed door and the same acoustic panels for the ceiling.

The test cell reduces engine noise up to 40 decibels.

It also has a roof plenum with a powerful fan that draws in fresh air and evacuates heat and exhaust gas through a silenced exhaust stack.

It's a high flow ventilation system that exchanges all of the air in the room every six seconds.

Now, to give you an idea of just how much noise this cell keeps from the rest of the shop.

Let's try something. Go ahead. Fire it up.

Remember the 572 from our supernova? Well, it's running open headers. This is going to be really loud.

They,

now let's come outside,

close the door.

Can you hear me now a

lot better? Huh?

Meanwhile, here at the console, our

dyno operator mutts just dying to make a pull in that big rat. Go ahead. Do your thing,

Joe. This thing's rocking. We just got 740 horsepower and 725 ft pounds of torque. Well, that's more than I expected now, other than torque and horsepower, what else can we monitor here? The DTs dyno

can monitor 50 data channels right now. I've got to set up to show the usual stuff like engine RPM, fuel pressure, oil pressure and water temperature.

All of those are things you can see on your dashboard.

Now, here's some of the stuff

that only a dyno

can tell you

right here. I've got fuel flow and gallons per hour.

Air fuel ratio on both the left and right side of the motors,

you break specific fuel consumption and even engine vacuum at the carburetor, all stuff that can affect horse

val, you bet. Now, here's how we get that information back to the computer sensors run from the engine, back up to this red box where the information is processed then transferred to the console. Now, here's another cool feature about this

dyno.

It uses a lot of interchangeable performance parts like a high torque starter, multiple adjustable fuel regulators and a high performance digital ignition system with an external coil. Here's how we feed each motor. We test

an eight gallon Jazz fuel cell feeding into a 1.5 horsepower ac driven fuel pump from Weldon.

Now, this thing can supply 3000 horsepower on gasoline,

man. What a milestone for horsepower. Our own injured dyno right here in the shop and we plan to use it from time to time to test all kinds of parts and combinations that can help you and your hunt for horsepower. In fact,

the search begins with this guy right after the break. You don't wanna miss it.

Hey, welcome back to horsepower where we just introduced our new DTs

dyno housed in this room built by industrial noise control. On our first test run. Earlier, we got 740 horsepower from a 572 Chevy big block.

If you ever book

dyno time for your engine, chances are you'll want to try out all kinds of parts of your hunt for horsepower like carbs headers, rockers, you name it.

Well, right now we're going to try out a couple of interesting camshaft options using the small block Chevy.

It's a 9 to 1 compression 406 built for racing

underneath the Holly 950. And Victor Junior manifold is a set of airflow research heads, an eagle rotating assembly and coated Je pistons.

It also has one of these. It's a laser hydraulic roller with 2 42 46 duration at 50,000 sli

the only difference is this cam has lobes that are set up so that cylinders four and seven change places in the firing order.

Now, we've heard we can make more horsepower using an engine like this by just swapping the firing order of the cam. Now keep this in mind that is using the same exact cam specs

after we bolt the motor onto our docking cart, it's off to the

dyno cell. Of course, we're going to first base line the motor with the standard firing order cam. That's in it now.

Ok. But what did we get,

Joe? We got 507 ft pounds of torque, 495 horsepower. And remember all that's on 87 octane,

by the way, I used the sound level meter outside the cell during that run and we got 82 decibels. Now, before we swap the cams out, what do you say? We make one more run

and measure the noise in here during a full sweep.

Wow. 100 20 decibels inside the cell that's about equal to a jet plane taxing down the runway.

Well, after letting the engine cool down, we first removed the carburetor,

pull the distributor

pop off the valve covers

and remove the intake manifold.

We remove the water pump,

pull off the balancer

followed by the belt drive.

Then we can take off the rockers so we can remove the push rods and lifters. Finally, the cam shafts ready to come out of the motor

while I get the laser replacement ready to install. Here's a look at what it's actually gonna do.

It's gonna change the standard Chevy firing order from this to this.

And that's why they call it the 47 swap.

After this install, we'll button up the motor degree the cam and we'll be ready for another run.

Wow, 528 horsepower. Now that's a gain of 33. Although the 47 C

did cost us an extra $90. You can't beat that sacrifice for the extra horsepower, man. I'll say now, why does it work? Well, the guys at laser, tell us, they believe the new firing

promotes a little better flow of air and fuel into the cylinders. Either way. The

dyno

don't lie.

Hey, you ready for a road trip? I'm J

you are. Now we're going to take you to the coolest reunion of historical hot rods. You've ever seen a place where you'll fit right in.

Well, really, uh what we have here is kind of representative of the various fields of motor sports, not just drag racing,

but different ones that kind of re relate to our roots, Wally Parks, one of the most prominent pioneers of hot riding

and the man behind this landmark in HR A museum in Pomona, California.

It's a fascinating hub full of high performance history, but once a year that history comes alive and heads east to Kentucky.

Welcome to the annual Hot Rod reunion. A celebration of speed, cool rides and hot racing history.

It's a, one of a kind of event that attracts thousands of cars and car people. I like the diverse because there's

anything you want. It's here, whether it's restored originals or street rods or, or

Rat rods, they're, they're all here or something here for everybody.

Yeah, like drag racers. Watching the quarter mile competition at Beach Bend is like traveling back in time

with nostalgic hot rods competing for trophy

and bragging rights,

bringing back muscle car memories for the fans.

Plus, where else can you find a young man like this pin striving? Like the old timers did it back in the fifties. You know, as far back as I can remember, I've been fascinated with this and the dying aspect of it. It's really a dying art. There's not a lot of people doing it now.

A

lot of guys, you, you know, draw patterns out and use cancels for some of this stuff.

But if you watch any of the true

Fin Dropper,

they all do it freehand.

One of the coolest things about this reunion is being able to get up close and personal with some of the cars and drivers who made racing history, whether it was on the circle tracks, Salt Flats or the drag strip. Yeah, here's one of the Barracuda, the late Ronnie Sox drove to Superstock fame on the strip

and a 63 Mercury that Parnelli Jones made when he runs with on the oval tracks.

Recognize the

hemi

well, if not, you'll definitely identify the swamp rat dragster.

One of the many that Don Garlits drove into the racing history books and it's fun to have been there since the beginning. Seeing this thing grow into this, uh,

unbelievable sport that it is today from

just some guys racing their cars on the street.

The reunion's grand marshal is Barb Hamilton,

first woman to get a license to race a supercharged hot rod by the N hr A.

Everything we did back then was built in the garage of the backyard.

We had to fabricate most of the parts we used, we build our own shirt clocks, do our own head work. So I love the racing today, but I'm glad I raced when I did.

I think we had a little bit more fun and it was a little less business.

Nelson Stoltz also raced the Willie's back in the sixties and recalls how dangerous his sport used to be his off

ari half the time. And,

you know, he, he,

he'd wonder whether it was gonna raise off the ground at the other end or not because they all set real high in air.

How you doing

right here

with acres and acres of cool rods to check out, it would take days to take them all in.

It's truly amazing to see how much time, creativity and money that goes into these machines.

So many nice cars.

But I got to tell you the way these classics and muscle cars are getting so pricey these days,

you can understand why rat rides are making a radical comeback.

We can go and have fun in them. Not be worried if anybody hits us or a rock picks anything. We don't have a multi

$1000 paint job. You know, we can just go have a blast and not worry about it.

The rules for building a rat rod are no rules at all. Just make sure you've got a rodent mascot guarding the ride. This one likes the Indian head and he's gnawed pretty much all of it off the top.

We have a great time. We meet so many nice people. We travel all over the place and all. We got to worry about gas.

I think we just got an idea for our next horsepower project car,

but that's no surprise.

The Hot Rod reunion. Is a great place to get ideas, inspiration and confidence that the culture of cool cars will live on

and never run out of fuel.

Welcome back to the shop where you never expect to see an 84 Piero on our chassis

dyno, but this is no ordinary Piero.

It was used by the late Smoky Unu

to develop a revolutionary hot air engine system

that proved to make incredible increases in horse power and fuel efficiency.

Even without a formal education, smokey became a true mechanical genius and inventor in his career, early he built racing engines for Hudson Hornets.

Then as a crafty and cunning crew chief, his cars won over 50 NASCAR races

with famous drivers at the wheel, like the legendary fireball robbers

back in a time when the crew chief was a true hands on guy at the track.

His passion for performance also helped him win the Indy 500 in 1960

he never stopped tinkering and inventing

it was a passion that led him to the hot vapor system in this fiero.

Well, here's that famous Fiero with the famous Smokey Built motor now in the proud hands of Tony Aller. Hey, thanks for coming by and sharing some of this history with us in a nutshell. How does this hot vapor system work?

Basically, what it does is the fuel is heated up to about 460 degrees before it enters the intake. The exhaust comes directly out of the combustion chambers over to the Turbos where it heats the, the coolant,

the coolant then heats the fuel,

the fuel

in return cools the coolant before it goes over to the thermostat housing.

Part of the secret was this homogenize

that smokey has stalled under the stock two barrel carburetors. These brushes are mounted inside the coolant runs through an orifice in the end of the brushes,

the brushes spin at about 100 and 50,000 RPM. S thus atomizing the fuel and vaporizing the fuel. The fuel runs through here heated

into the turbo charge where it's pressurized into the intake manifold where you have a very efficient pressurized hot vapor charge, 51 miles a gallon.

Uh virtually no emissions. 250 horsepower, you had performance economy and low emissions. You really couldn't ask for any more

plans to put Smokey's hot vapor invention into production, unfortunately fell by the wayside.

But it is one piece of proof that Henry Smokey Unni

was a creative imagineer

whose imagination may have been ahead of its time.

It looks like Metronic strikes again with their new second strike ignition system.

The only one providing a powerful secondary spark throughout the entire RPM range. Your original inductive system remains in place for the primary spark.

The second one is adjustable with this rotary dial. So you control when it occurs,

there's also a high resolution rev limit or controllable with these dials. So if this system sparks your

interest. You can pick up one for about 300 bucks.

Are you looking for a good set of GM, double hump cylinder heads? Well, you don't have to comb through the dump anymore. Summit has these available for small block Chevrolets. They're cast iron and come assembled with 67 CC chambers and 1 65 CC runners. It's a great way to add performance for less than the cost of rebuilding the old set. Oh, by the way, these things are sold individually for about 293 bucks apiece.

Hey, ready to put some color under your hood. Well, if so you want a paint that can take the heat in more like Dupa colors. Engine enamel,

it contains resins that dissipate heat while keeping the gloss.

It holds up the temperatures up to 500 degrees. Resist fuel and oil plus won't blister flake or peel.

Now, if this appeals to you, you can find a variety of OEM and specialty colors in your local parts store.

Well, you know where to find us right here next week with more horsepower. See you then.